Monthly Archives: February 2010

Here is a copy of the latest Eve Politics update I did for the Goonwaffe forums a couple of days ago, while Stain and IT were (momentarily) at war. Note that it was for Goonwaffe consumption, and therefore may appear ever-so-slightly slanted.

Optimistic version: in the absence of a halfway-coherent goon threat that they can point at, first signs of splits in the southern bloc begin to show.

Pessimistic version: Goonwaffe has about the same ISK as one of Gamma’s newbies and slightly less chance of taking meaningful space.

The Victory that Wasn’t: Delve War I

What is there to say about Delve I? We were within days of victory. The Band of Brothers lay shattered, inactive, supine. And we failed.

At the tail end of the Southern campaign, we had attempted to take Period Basis on the bounce. That had failed, and we realised that there would be no soft underbelly, no Thessalonika or Dardanelles. Delve and Querious would have to be taken. The (then) logistically weaker northern allies would take Querious, while Goons and Red Alliance pushed into Delve.

Part Three – Things Fly Apart

The South was the key theatre in the Great War, but as Band of Brothers concentrated more and more on that theatre, and as their facade of invincibility crumbled, other power-blocs began to feel that they could settle old scores. This post will be a short diversion from the southern theatre. Although my main character is in Goonswarm, I fought on both these fronts, one as part of an expeditionary force, the other on a spy alt on a different side.

This episode is a little longer than the others so far. But there is a lot of ground to cover.

The Turn of the Tide

We are now a year into this story. Goonswarm stands at bay, morale cracking and leaders left, our fall eagerly awaited by a host of enemies.

In Indonesia, a Frenchman called Kugutsumen had once infiltrated Goonswarm’s IT infrastructure, at the request of their enemies. Not the sharpest tools in the shed, those enemies had then refused to pay him his fee. Further, his time spent reading the Goon forums had impressed him with how much fun they seemed to have had during their time in Eve, compared to those he had dealt with. This was the first of two Goon Cultural Victories that would shape Eve.

Early Goonfleet PropagandaIf, like me, you read virtual worlds sites like Terra Nova, you soon come across the idea of “player-created content.” Some games let you make horrible little missions for your friends. Some let you sell prosthetic penises to men pretending to be women so they can Goonfleet corporation was very young, and most of its pilots had been members for only a few weeks or months, they came to the attention of the greatest power in Eve: Band of Brothers. Sensing an easy target, they manufactured a crusade against Goonfleet, harassing and griefing their newbies for weeks, preventing them even undocking and turning the greatest powers in the game against them. After doing so, they declared that “There are no Goons. Goodbye.” They stated that Goons would “never be allowed to build up again in 0.0”

And so the Goonswarm alliance was crushed forever, Eve cleansed, and the Band of Brothers’ position in Eve secured.

OK, after a year and a half, I’m back blogging. It’ll be intriguing to start again from scratch.

I will spare you the details of the previous hosts (M6.net) who turned into a hosting con trick, complete with fictional numbers and imaginary offices. Nor will I burden you with the facts behind my stealing my own domain name back. Not for you, gentle reader, such mundane details. Suffice to say that I had a blog, which I ignored for 18 months, and which is now active again.

Eve Online will probably be quite a focus, for now: I find it an intriguing sandbox. I’m probably going to get trolled on goonfleet.com about this (the Goon “Hippoking Effect” of distrust of those who talk to pubbies), but in the immortal words of Popeye the Sailorman: “ego sum quid sum”. I am what I am. A narcissist.